A top Euro politician has urged Europeans to get cracking on rolling out 5G networks after falling behind Asia and America in adopting 4G.
Neelie Kroes, who is vice-president of the European Commission and heads up the continent's digital strategy, has earmarked €50m (£43m) for funding research into faster-than-4G mobile …

COMMENTS

Attention whoring brings you friends and political fortune

Jesus Christ, I'm still not even at 2.5G, WTF?

"For the next global standard, and the next generation of technology, will Europe lead the world, or merely follow?"

I can answer that now already.

"Will future ubiquitous ultra-high bandwidth communication infrastructure, also known as 5G, be pioneered by European industry, based on European research, creating European jobs? Or will global competitors get there first – and, by the way, many of them are already investing heavily."

Jesus Christ. Mercantilist much? I imagine the "IP homesteading" faggotry that goes on in these affairs really puts the red-hot point of a branding iron onto a sensitive skin part, but still...

Any particular "european industry" that hasn't yet sold off its assets and/or is basically state-owned which might apply? Do I smell sweetheart deals?

earmarked €50m (£43m) for funding research

Amazing, I didn't know she was so well off.

Oh, hang on. That's our money she's talking about. To develop new technology that we can also pay for, whether we need it or not.

It's always a pity that engineers are mostly too smart to want to enter politics, so we end up with grandstanding nobodies whose only aim is to put their names on as many big "initiatives" as possible to justify a big pension pot.

It's only a matter of time before some Brussels Bozo seriously proposes increasing the speed of light to make better use of the ether.

5G???

Wtf do i want 5g for

I mean the only application for 4g is watching video and 99.999% of that is the circus element of giving the great unwashed bread and circuses. Nope 3g serves me nicely and 4g and 5g only serve to provide entertainment for the plebs rather than doing something sensible with the excess population like gassing them. Maybe if the next gen phones included an electrocute user function then i could see a momentary need for 5g bandwidth to send around 9billion "do it now" commands.

Re: Wtf do i want 5g for

Well, 5G could possible emerge from the STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration-1) smartphone nanosatellite work. They're using Surrey SSTL protocols based on UDP/IP as Disruptive/Delay Tolerant Networking for Space applications which can quite easily be shoehorned onto cognitive policy based Mesh Networks.

see: http://personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/publications/internet-drafts/draft-wood-tsvwg-saratoga/wood-eddy-saratoga-dtn-iwssc-07.pdf "Saratoga: a Delay-Tolerant Networking convergence layer with efficient link utilization" & http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/26828/2/STRaND-1%20IAC%20Paper.pdf "STRaND-1: use of a $500 smartphone as the central avionics of a nanosatellite"

but back to answer your eloquent WTF?

5G DTN (UDP/IP) can get a factor of TEN more data across a network than 4G LTE TCP/IP which is otherwise approaching Shannon maxima

5G UDP/IP *expects* to be disconnected by a tunnel or rain or fading or w.h.y?

5G transmit power of terminal can be really low in UDP mesh network

5G battery life will be better, 100 to 1000 times better, even for iPhones

5G "safety" is improved, SAR rates will plummet, BTS masts for 5G won't actually be needed next to schools..

there's more but you need to dig as "beyond TCP/IP" isn't being discussed much other than in Space related terms - but I think it'd be great terrestrially

I can't wait for 5G

Smokescreen and mirrors

All this waffle can only be summed up with

"Don't lose your trust in Europe as we have this wonder weapon"

In the coming months the EU will be much more concerned with ailing car manufacturers (Vauxhall/Opel, Peugeot et al) and printing more money for ailing economies in the south (Italy, Spain, Portugal). The biggest chunk in the EU budget is still the common Agricultural Policy and the rural Development and fisheries put together (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20442880).

Re: Wonder weapon

Re: Smokescreen and mirrors

Classic Tory Trolling:

In the coming months the EU will be much more concerned with ailing car manufacturer

Only inasmuch as it will be limiting the amount of subsidies that national governments are able to make. That'll be the same national governments who because they can't make sensible decisions allow the EU budget to rise simply with inflation. Maybe it would help if Cameron borrowed Maggie's handbag the next time he goes to Brussels?

The EU, and in particular the European Commission, continues to rollback the barriers to competition including incompatible technical standards. It was the EU that mandated the use of GSM for mobile networks to guarantee services working across borders and, thus, lay the foundation for the investment that led to GSM becoming most common standard in the world. We're not even lagging behind on 4G seeing as the SoC's aren't yet available there aren't that many devices available. 4G is supposed to be evolutionary which is exactly how it's being made available: data only first and primarily in regions with poor fixed-line or 3G coverage (yes, I know the cities will grab the headlines but look at the terms of the licences) with interoperability an absolute must (and this means phones supporting a load of different bands of radio standards).

Re: Smokescreen and mirrors

Or to put it another way. British Telecom, Duetsche Telecom, France Telecom and everyother national monopoly telecom get $M in back handers to "invest" in this new technology which will be standardised across europe.

They will then introduce data roaming charges that make it 100x as expensive to use your european standard phone 1km across a border.

great way to a deeeeeep coffer

1. invent a need. It needn't be realistic. In fact, it shouldn't be, all the realistic ones already been taken. Say... a Pan-european rail network running at up to 700 mph (you can never, ever forget the "up to", otherwise some nitpickers might try to put a brake on your mega-ultra-fast train fleet).

2. wrap it round in a few in a few catchy phrases (we can't be worse than the yanks, we can't be worse than those ch-people, otherwise we're doomed, when we have a chance to show the world, etc.).